Upsalite, named after Uppsala University, where it was created, is a very porous alkali earth metal carbonate and has set records for both surface area and water absorption.
“In contrast to what has been claimed for more than 100 years in the scientific literature, we have found that amorphous magnesium carbonate can be made in a very simple, low-temperature process,” said Johan Goméz de la Torre, a researcher in the university’s nanotechnology and functional materials division and a member of the team that created the material.
Upsalite is a newly-discovered form of magnesium carbonate. According to Science World Report, magnesium carbonate is abundant in its ordered form, but had previously never existed in an unordered, water-free form.
Scientists actually created the material entirely by accident in 2011. After tweaking the parameters for synthesis and mistakenly leaving the new sample in a reaction chamber over a weekend, the team found the following Monday that a rigid gel had formed.
The team then refined the creation method and analyzed the data before finally concluding that they had actually created the material they thought was impossible to produce.
Upsalite could have many industrial uses, something Uppsala hopes to capitalize on through the university’s program Disruptive Materials.
The research findings have been published in the journal PLOS ONE.
